- The upcoming Volvo XC40 Recharge EV will make a low-speed noise that started as a human voice.
- The turn-signal sound in current Volvos started as the sound of a stick breaking in two.
- Volvo says 300 sticks were snapped before the right sound was found.
At its headquarters in Gothenburg, Sweden, Volvo’s Active Sound Experience is building the noises that issue from current and future cars. During a tour of the facility, sound designer Frederick Hagman demoed the noise that the upcoming XC40 Recharge EV will make while it’s stopped, moving slowly, and driving in reverse. He also shared a tidbit about the current noise heard in Volvos every time you use the blinkers: it’s the sound of a stick being broken in two.
The stick in question was either from a spruce or fir tree located in a forest about 60 miles from Volvo HQ. Hagman said Volvo’s team went into the forest and recorded about 300 sticks breaking to get the source audio file needed for the blinker. After returning and listening to all the sticks breaking to find the right one, Hagman said, they then layered the sound and adjusted its pitch up and down to create the two noises.
“We wanted something which was more kind of full-body,” Hagman said.
Finally, the sound designers slowed the timing between the clicks to a more calming rate of about 150 beats per minute. All for something Volvo drivers hear before turning or changing lanes.
Volvo has made a huge push toward sustainability; Hagman even noted, in jest, that the sticks the automaker used were already dead and gathered from the forest floor. But it also helps that a dry, dead stick has much more of a crack while breaking than one right off a tree.
That sort of natural source material for a sound is also the base for the automaker’s upcoming EVs. For the XC40 Recharge and other electrified Volvos, the noise the vehicles make while standing still is a vocal sample. As with the stick sound, the original audio has been adjusted and layered. In this case, the sound resembles a slowly pulsing choral ensemble that’s meant to be relaxing. It’s very subtle and only meant to be heard from about six feet away.
While the vehicle is moving forward, a slight hum is created. Its gets louder as the vehicle speeds and cuts off at about 18 mph. In reverse, that same sound is accompanied by a sort of electric heartbeat beeping. It’s not nearly as annoying or loud as what you’d hear from a truck or a piece of construction equipment. One person likened it to sonar.
All of these noises are created out of the desire to reduce the sound pollution of vehicles as much as possible while still emitting audio that warns pedestrians, bicyclists, and other drivers of the approach of a vehicle. The desire is to not startle but to grab attention.
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As more and more EVs show up on roadways—each with its own unique low-speed sound—parking lots and residential areas will soon have an orchestra of competing alerts. How well those alerts work compared to the rumble of a combustion engine is yet to be seen. What we do know is that somewhere in a Swedish forest, there’s a tree that birthed a turn signal click, and that’s about as Volvo as Volvo can get.
Source: Motor - aranddriver.com
